Homelessness Project: Crisis Case Study

Hermitage Primary School, Wapping

Comic-Strip Project on Homelessness

Date: 2nd April 2003

Interim Report

The aim of this project was to engage young people aged 9 -11 with various issues surrounding the topic of 'Homelessness' - its many causes, its effects, and some of the steps taken by wider society to provide facilities for this vulnerable section of the population.

The vehicle for this engagement was to be the comic-strip, utilising its inherent potential to educate and illustrate through the combination of word and image. One of many inspirations was the award-winning graphic novel "The Tale of One Bad Rat" by Bryan Talbot, which told the story of a homeless girl in London.

Dominic Preston of Rebellion, publishers of the long-running comic 2000AD, served as overall co-ordinator, liaising between the tutors, the school's staff, and the Homelessness charity Crisis, which pledged support for this project.

He engaged the services of Steve Marchant and Kev Sutherland as specialist tutors; both are freelance cartoonists with considerable teaching experience, and Steve is also a part-time youth worker for Lewisham Borough Council. They were assisted by Boo Cook, one of 2000AD's top illustrators.

Initially, a 7-week programme was envisaged, with tutors visiting the classroom for one afternoon session per week; this was expanded slightly, owing to school holidays - and the enthusiasm of the pupils!

The programme was broadly based around 3 main areas: confidence-building drawing exercises, so that the pupils would not feel daunted by the task at hand; putting together a storyline that reflected many of the issues affecting homeless people; and adapting this script into comic-strip form.

The young people were clearly excited by the project, and picked up the basic drawing skills quickly, even going so far as producing their own 'How to Draw' leaflets in another lesson, reflecting what they'd learned.

Originating a script proved problematic at first, as a planned visit to the school by selected homeless people from Crisis - who were to tell the pupils of their own experiences - failed to materialise. Instead, Crisis supplied a number of case-histories (with the names, etc, changed) which were then adapted by the tutors into 3 stories set within a framing narrative. The pupils then added their own ideas for situations and dialogue, and designed the general look of the characters.

Each pupil then worked on a single panel of the storyline, drawing a picture to go with their part of the script, thinking carefully about how they might best illustrate that part of the story, and about how the characters might be feeling. This process was repeated until the whole story was done, so that the pupils each have several illustrations throughout the finished stories.

Special mention should be made here of the support and encouragement - to pupils and tutors alike! - given by the class tutor, Shireena.

At this time of writing (early April), the class-contact element of the project is at an end, with the finished comic-strip story existing as 60 A4 illustrations, and a cover-design with the title - suggested by the pupils - of LIVING.

These illustrations will now have the dialogue added and be prepared for publication by the team at Rebellion, ready for inclusion as a comic-book with the video project's finished work; it is also hoped that it will eventually be available to view on-line. (Post script: the booklet is available on line, and Rebellion have kindly funded the printing of a number of copies.)

A full report and overview of the project will be made available after these final stages of production.

Steve Marchant
2nd April 2003

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